Rising interest rates, bank branch closures, and increased labor costs are creating a slew of problems for restaurants in the year to come. Here’s how technology can keep restaurants more productive and reduce the overall impact of the below challenges:
High-Interest Rates
Rates are higher than ever and are predicted to increase until 2025. This has caused higher costs associated with the supply chain, including the food, equipment, and funding restaurants need to operate. These higher interest rates have also slowed mergers and acquisitions and made business investments more costly. Lastly, businesses try to make cash deposits daily so they can access 100 percent of their sales. This is where a solution like SafePoint, which offers provisional credit, is more valuable to restaurants than ever. They’ll receive daily provisional credit from their bank without having a manager leave the store premise and lose valuable time and productivity—which is already a strained resource.
Labor
Restaurants will be facing more challenges when it comes to labor in 2023. Yes, wages will rise. Yes, turnover will continue, and yes, replacing employees will only get more difficult and expensive. Rewards Network reports that the hospitality industry’s turnover rate is 73 percent, and the average cost associated with replacing an employee is $5,864 per person, not including salary. When looking at the numbers, it is no wonder restaurants are turning to automation for repetitive, low-value tasks to reduce costs and boost efficiency with the knowledge that not all employees will be replaced. Automating cash management with a solution like Loomis’ line of Titan smart safes, which automatically counts cash and keeps it secure until an armored truck picks it up, saving managers 45 minutes to an hour and a half daily.
Bank Consolidation
Banks continue to close branches especially in rural and suburban areas. Managers are now driving further to make deposits and get change which means they are out of the store for longer periods when labor is tight and in-store operations must take precedence. Reducing bank trips leaves more cash in the store, increasing risk of loss and decreasing cash liquidity for the business. In addition, banks are raising fees to help streamline their operations, and commercial businesses are being heavily impacted. Many restaurants have reported the fees associated with over-the-counter deposits rising as much as 50–200 percent.
While not all these problems can be easily solved, restaurants can alleviate some of the impact of these challenges by investing in the right automation technology that reduces the need and cost of labor, eliminates bank trips, and subdues the higher costs associated with high-interest rates.
To learn more, visit the Loomis website.
